Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jul 2007
Source: NOW Magazine (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 NOW Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nowtoronto.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/282
Author: Matt Mernagh
Cited: Medical Marihuana Access Program 
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/marihuana/index_e.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal - Canada)

DON'T GET TOO HIGH ON POT RULING

Internal audit reveals feds banking on legal limbo to obstruct medpot reforms.

The feds' backward pot laws have been smoked out yet again - this 
time by a court decision two weeks ago declaring weed possession laws 
unconstitutional.

This after a Toronto man busted with $45 of bud argued that the 
country's medical marijuana regulations are flawed. But don't expect 
the decision to make getting medical pot any easier.

The ongoing legal confusion surrounding our pot laws is what's making 
our Medical Marihuana Access Program look like it's being 
administered by the Trailer Park Boys.

A recently completed internal audit by Health Canada suggests no 
long-term vision has ever been set out for the program, because pot 
laws have languished in a legal limbo since they were first struck 
down in 2003.

The audit makes particular note of a 2003 meeting at which then 
health minister Anne McLellan essentially instructed staff to 
obstruct the processing of Canadians seeking access to medpot. It was 
at that meeting that a directive was issued for MMAP staff to strive 
for the constitutional minimum when it comes to administering the 
federal pot program.

The audit also reveals that the department still doesn't have a 
mission statement and just recently developed standard operating procedures.

But the audit defends the decision not to adopt a long-term vision 
for the program by stating, "For reasons such as the complexity and 
rapid change of the issues impacting the program, it was not 
practical to further delineate performance targets."

HC spokesperson Renee Bergeron responds in an e-mail that "Health 
Canada's long-term vision involves the program acquiring, where 
possible, the features of a traditional health care model, including 
the phase-out of personal cultivation, distribution of marihuana to 
authorized persons through pharmacies, keeping abreast of the risks 
and benefits of marihuana and the sharing of such information with 
patients and their physicians."

One of the problems HC is having, Bergeron writes, "is limited 
information from other countries' experiences."

HC may want to take a look at Oregon's Medical Marijuana Program 
(OMMP). Conceived at the same time as Canada's, the Oregon program 
has registered 12,000-plus users and more than 2,500 physicians. By 
comparison, HC has registered 1,741 Canadians and 1,028 doctors nationwide.

Since the UN has declared Canada the cannabis champion of the world, 
isn't it high time we started acting like champs, not chumps? 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake